The collections assembled by Berkeley’s many patrons and collectors over the last 150 years have formed the core and foundation of a wide variety of the university’s academic disciplines and institutions. Curated entirely by graduate students, The Papyrus in the Crocodile exhibit now on display at the Bancroft Libraryilluminates a key selection of these invaluable objects as testaments to the cosmopolitan ideologies of Berkeley’s visionary patrons, donors, and scholars. In gathering together artifacts from repositories across the university, including the College of Environmental Design's Archives, this exhibition sheds light on the history of acquisitions and encounters that have contributed to the academic diversity celebrated on the Berkeley campus.

For the past academic year, the Environmental Design Archives' staff has worked with graduate students enrolled in the History of Art Department's Mellon Graduate Exhibition Seminar. As a result of the student's extensive research on the Environmental Design Archives collections, 19 archival objects were selected for display in the exhibit including: circa-1908 plans of famed British horticulturalist and garden designer Gertrude Jekyll’s garden for the Manor House in Upton Grey that were used to restore the garden; photographs and drawings of Greene and Greene's Gamble house, early photographs of Blake Garden and other beautiful items from the Archives' collections.